Scattered Rosary Beads
by Pixieblade
Summary: I found this picture of Akira with a cross cut into his chest, he seemed so bereft that I started writing before I knew it.


**Title: **Scattered Rosary Beads

**Series:** Monochrome Factor  
**Rating: **T  
**Word count:** 755  
**Summary: **Dark musings.

**Authors Note: **Found the picture, inverted it, and then wrote this. Kinda part and parcel for me, huh?

I'm pacing and I know it. I can't seem to help it and I don't know why. There's blood running down my chest, the caking mess starting to itch like crazy as is dries and cracks, the rusty flakes falling to the floor, grinding into the carpet, staining like a leaky faucet in a tub, marring its perfect off-white creaminess. My hands are in my hair and I'm half debating ripping every last strand from my head in mounting frustration as I try and work out what happened. Not the cut, those black scaly ass-holes did that, but they're dead and I'm not, so I guess it doesn't matter much, huh?

"Shirogane…"

Oh yeah, he's not here. And suddenly I'm not pacing anymore, I'm running and there are doors hanging off of hinges that I swear I'll make that white haired freak help me fix later and people are screaming at me as I try to chase down some sort of clue, Aya's threatening bodily harm and Kengo's cling to my legs like I'm a damn security blanket and for a moment I feel badly because this is not their fight and I never wanted them to be a part of it, but he was right, we need the help and that just pisses me off more so I stop thinking about it.

"Moron."

And then there's Kou, cool, collected, always knowing what to do or say and always arrogantly self-assured, I know I'm nothing but a pale imitation of him, have been since we met, or maybe it was him trying to be me, the me I don't remember and don't want to remember but that I find myself thinking so much about. That and white hair. It gets so confusing trying to keep it straight in my head and that idiot Shin doesn't help any and when I find him I'm so kicking his ass until he does.

"I don't have time for this, just die already!"

I'm screaming. Why am I screaming again? There's no need to scream, he's nothing, they are all just as sand shifting through my fingers, lifeless nothings whose existence is like that of a fly's to me. I'm confident, maybe overly so, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. There's a burning in my chest and along my fingers and my blades are gone, dissolved into sparkly matter before my eyes but I'm not really seeing, not like I should, they are all colors, vibrant, burning, etched into the space where there should be physical forms and instead it's like some scene out of the matrix or the exorcist, I can _feel_ them, _see_ them in the movements of their blood as they try so valiantly to defeat me.

And then there is nothing again.

I should be use to that by now. The nothing. I was always alone, even in a room of people, and then I wasn't and I didn't know what to do with myself. Always worrying about what the other person was doing, thinking, feeling. Were they alright, what were they doing, were they lonely, and when they left, did they miss me.

"Did you?"

"Ryk…Akira-kun. You came."

"You're a moron, Shirogane."

"…."

"Of course I came. Now come on, we're going home."

"…."

"And there's a door you need to fix tomorrow."

"Of course, Akira."

And why do I feel better when he slips up behind me, merges with me, fills me with his power, his presence, so much so that I can taste his scent in the back of my throat? Maybe a better question would be: why did I ever let him leave?

_Tadaima, Akira._

"Okaerinasai. Don't do that again though."

_Yes._

He breathes the word like a silent prayer and I hope to God it's true; falling to the bed exhausted, drained more than I ever thought I could be. To tired to brush his hand away from my cheek, my hair or my lips. To tired to fend him off when his press feather light against my temple. That or maybe I just don't care anymore. Drifting asleep with his scent and warmth around me, flowing through me, my power refreshed as he touches, heals, forgives and is forgiven I find I'm thinking again and try to stop it.

Maybe I just care too much.

Maybe.

Fin


End file.
